Wheelwright
As with other trades, the wheelwright’s business expanded to meet increasing transport demands of the early 1800s, only then to be faced with competition of mass production as the century progressed. The wheel took much skill to produce. It is not a simple flat circle of wood but a complex dished shape, designed to allow the stresses and pressure put upon its shape by uneven road surfaces to be absorbed by its structure. Each element of the wheel requires a different wood; elm for the hub, oak for the spokes and ash for the felloes (outside of the wheel). The whole structure is held together by an iron tyre.
/Collections/Crafts---Trades/uafp_crafts_and_trades_wheelwrights1)
Washer cutter with wooden cross-handle, overall height 18.5cm. Stamped THURINGIA.
Washer cutters were mainly used by wheelwrights for cutting out leather washers to fit on the axles of carriages between the axle box and the shoulder of the axle, for quietness and to keep the oil in. This model is for use by hand, unlike some washer cutters which would be used along with a drill. Thuringia is an administrative region in central Germany.
Museum number 2003.1
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